1. sedate, staid, thoughtful. Grave,sober,solemn refer to the condition of being serious in demeanor or appearance. Grave indicates a weighty dignity, or the character, aspect, demeanor, speech, etc., of one conscious of heavy responsibilities or cares, or of threatening possibilities: The jury looked grave while studying the evidence.Sober (from its original sense of freedom from intoxication, and hence temperate, staid, sedate) has come to indicate absence of levity, gaiety, or mirth, and thus to be akin to serious and grave: as sober as a judge; a sober expression on one's face.Solemn implies an impressive seriousness and deep earnestness: The minister's voice was solemn as he announced the text.

Graves1

/ɡrɑːv/

noun

1.

(sometimes not capital) a white or red wine from the district around Bordeaux, France

Graves2

/ɡreɪvz/

noun

1.

Robert (Ranke). 1895–1985, English poet, novelist, and critic, whose works include his World War I autobiography, Goodbye to All That (1929), and the historical novels I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1934)

grave1

/ɡreɪv/

noun

1.

a place for the burial of a corpse, esp beneath the ground and usually marked by a tombstone related adjective sepulchral

2.

something resembling a grave or resting place: the ship went to its grave

to make someone turn in his grave, to make someone turn over in his grave, to do something that would have shocked or distressed (someone now dead): many modern dictionaries would make Dr Johnson turn in his grave

Word Origin

Old English græf; related to Old Frisian gref, Old High German grab, Old Slavonic grobǔ; see grave³

grave2

/ɡreɪv/

adjective

1.

serious and solemn: a grave look

2.

full of or suggesting danger: a grave situation

3.

important; crucial: grave matters of state

4.

(of colours) sober or dull

5.

(phonetics)

(of a vowel or syllable in some languages with a pitch accent, such as ancient Greek) spoken on a lower or falling musical pitch relative to neighbouring syllables or vowels

of or relating to an accent (`) over vowels, denoting a pronunciation with lower or falling musical pitch (as in ancient Greek), with certain special quality (as in French), or in a manner that gives the vowel status as a syllable nucleus not usually possessed by it in that position (as in English agèd) Compare acute (sense 8), circumflex

noun

6.

a grave accent

Derived Forms

gravely, adverbgraveness, noun

Word Origin

C16: from Old French, from Latin gravis; related to Greek barus heavy; see gravamen

grave3

/ɡreɪv/

verb (transitive) (archaic) graves, graving, graved, graved, graven

1.

to cut, carve, sculpt, or engrave

2.

to fix firmly in the mind

Word Origin

Old English grafan; related to Old Norse grafa, Old High German graban to dig

grave4

/ɡreɪv/

verb

1.

(transitive) (nautical) to clean and apply a coating of pitch to (the bottom of a vessel)

"The normal mod. representation of OE. græf would be graff; the ME. disyllable grave, from which the standard mod. form descends, was prob. due to the especially frequent occurrence of the word in the dat. (locative) case. [OED]

From Middle Ages to 17c., they were temporary, crudely marked repositories from which the bones were removed to ossuaries after some years and the grave used for a fresh burial. "Perpetual graves" became common from c.1650. To make (someone) turn in his grave "behave in some way that would have offended the dead person" is first recorded 1888.

grave

v.

"to engrave," Old English grafan (medial -f- pronounced as "v" in Old English; past tense grof, past participle grafen) "to dig, carve, dig up," from Proto-Germanic *grabanan (cf. Old Norse grafa, Old Frisian greva, Dutch graven, Old High German graban, German graben, Gothic graban "to dig, carve"), from the same source as grave (n.). Its Middle English strong past participle, graven, is the only part still active, the rest of the word supplanted by its derivative, engrave.